How To Search For Keyword

One of the most Important keys to ranking high in the SERPS (search engine results page) is to first learn how to search for a keyword. Keywords are the gateway to getting organic traffic to a website. This article will give you some insight into learning how to search for the best keywords then decide which one to use.

The best thing about having your articles ranking high in the SERPS is getting free Traffic to your website – 24/7!

The first thing before we dive into this lesson on how to search for keyword is to understand what is a keyword? What makes one word a keyword but another word just a word? How do you distinguish the difference?

A keyword is a specific word or word phrase that people use to search for something online. When a keyword research is performed you are looking for the most popular keyword phrase. However, the most popular keyword phrase isn’t always your best choice. Let me explain why this is true.

The three important metrics that all keyword tools use to measure the quality of keywords are:

Monthly search volume

Monthly traffic volume

Competition volume

Generally, keyword tools designate three columns to highlight the monthly average volumes of searches, traffic, and competition. The first column is usually the search volume; The second column is usually the traffic volume, and the third column is the competition.

So, for example, if you were searching for a certain pair of running shoes, you would probably enter the brand name of running shoes, like Nike, Reebok, Adidas, etc.

The words that could be considered a category can also be a broad search term. Examples of this could be running shoes, or exercise equipment, special hair conditioner, or best keyword tool.

Each of the different categories I used in the above example could also be used as a keyword. Running shoes – there are many brands, some good, some bad, some expensive, some not so expensive. Exercise equipment – for what? Losing weight? Gaining muscle or body mass? What type? Resistance, treadmill, rowing, etc.

Special hair conditioner – for dandruff? For damaged hair? For curly hair? What about the best keyword tool – There are several brands, some free, some inexpensive, some terribly expensive.

All of these categories can be considered keywords. The other words that must be used in a sentence to make the grammar correct would be considered Latentkeywords, or what is known in the online marketing industry as simply Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI for short.

What Are LSI Keywords and Why Do You Need Them?

This is a term that Google uses to make sense of a website’s content. With their ever-evolving algorithm, Google matches a searchers query with as close to an exact match as possible within the SERPS. These queries range from a single broad term keyword to multi-word keyword phrases known as long-tailed keywords.

This advanced system of measuring keyword usage has lead to a Google dominance in search engine competition. Google is unmatched because of their most relevant and authoritative results. It is no wonder that If your website is not ranking high in the SERPS, there is little to no traffic going your website.

A website cannot survive very long without traffic.

This is why in the past most keyword research tools used Google to get their data from. Many of these research tools still rely on the data that was once given to them for free. However, Google changed the way this data is received.

Google suspended many of these keyword research tools accounts. This made all their data useless because it is from outdated databases. So the keywords you are given may show promise, it is unlikely the traffic volume to a site ever comes close to matching the data given.

But knowing how Google interprets a search query is only half of the equation. The other half is having a system that gives accurate data time and time again. Having some experience in SEO is also a plus. You don’t have to be a “mind reader”.

Google The Mind Reader

By collecting data from a person for a period of time Google can interpret what the person is searching for just by the words they use in their search query.

Let me show you an example.

Take the word “car”. This is a very broad term because it could mean “New Cars”, like their cost, specifications, etc. It could also be where to “find a car”, like new car lots, used car lots, rental car lots, etc. Lastly, it could be “car accessories”, like tires, wheels, car parts, engine oil, etc.

By using an algorithm, Google can almost guess correctly what a person is searching for just by the LSI keywords they are using in their search term.

How is this beneficial to an online marketer? First of all, by having an accurate keyword tool that accesses some of this data in real time you get a paint by number picture of what these people are searching for.

Once you know what keywords these people are using you can write your articles around these words. Your site will be rewarded in the SERPS by ranking high. A high rank nearly guarantees to receive most, if not all, of the traffic.

This is what makes a good keyword tool so immensely important.

Doing Keyword Research Without A Keyword Tool

Yes, it can be done but not as accurate or as fast as using the keyword tool. It is what has been named the “alphabetsoup” technique. It is used exactly like the name implies, plugging in every letter of the alphabet into your search term to get suggested search terms from the search engine.

As in my picture below, I am using “keywords” that I typed into Google Search Box. After the word Keyword, I add the “letter A” and record my results (See below – Keyword with letter A).

Then I change the letter A to B and then record my results (See below – keyword B)

Then I replace the letter B with the letter C and get more keyword ideas.

I continue this “alphabet” and insert each letter, from A to Z, into the search box after my original keyword. What this does is give you ideas to continue to research to find the best keyword.

After just a few letters I already have dozens of potential keyword ideas to investigate. So now I take one of these ideas and plug it into the search box to see what Google can find. (See below).

What I do when I use one of the keyword ideas and plug it back into Google search box I surround the idea in “parenthesis” this way only the websites that are ranking for this keyword are shown. In this case, there are 25,800 websites.

WAIT! This is not fully correct!

By taking this a step further you actually find out that there are only 209 websites ranking for this keyword – “Keywords best practices”. So 25,800 is misleading. The way I find there are really only 209 sites is by going to the bottom of the page Google displays pages; starting with page one, then two, and so on.

If you continue to click the last page displayed it eventually ends on page 21. Usually, there are 10 positions listed per page, so the math tells us 10 X 21 = 210 sites. Google now shows the actual number of sites ranking for this keyword. (See below)

This exercise in using the “alphabet soup technique” is to help someone come up with good keyword ideas. It will take further research to weed out and refine the keywords in this list. This technique works best in combination with a good keyword tool. The keyword tool saves many hours in researching plus it is more accurate in the volumes displayed.

For example, see the picture below with the same keyword phrase, “Keywords Best Practices” and notice the volumes in each column.

By using the keyword tool “Jaaxy” in the picture above, I was able to see immediately that this search term that I found from the “alphabet soup technique” is “NO GOOD”. The reason being is that there is no one searching for keywords using this search term. Plus, there are 209 competing websites ranking for this keyword term.

The KQI column is the Keyword Quality Indicator, which is the color yellow, which is another indication that this is a poor choice of keywords. Yellow means poor choice.

As you can see from the example above a keyword tool is worth its weight in gold by time saved in researching keywords. It is a task that all online marketers must do. The better that someone gets at selecting keywords the more free traffic their site will be able to get.